Elusive by Sara Rosett

Elusive is a romantic suspense novel by Sara Rosett, the first in her On the Run series.  The books' protagonist is Zoe Hunter, a free-spirited, impulsive woman, who gets caught up in strange, frightening situations thanks to her relationship with Jack, her ex-husband.

Two things ring true when reading the book:  the emotions of the characters, and the locations.  Psychologically the characters are true-to-life.  And the locations are depicted very realistically, setting the stage well for the action.  The locations in Elusive are varied:  Dallas, Texas; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Rome, Naples and Venice, Italy.

From the book's description:

Zoe Hunter loves living on the edge.  Free-spirited and spontaneous, she’s built a life stringing together various freelance gigs that keep her bank account barely in the black.

But when her ex, Jack, goes missing along with several million dollars from his business and the FBI zeros in on her as a person of interest, Zoe’s life goes from delightfully unpredictable to downright frightening.

Plunged into a world of fake identities, deception, and murder, she’s afraid to trust anyone. Zoe impulsively skips town in a search for answers that takes her from Las Vegas to Italy, but instead of tracking down answers, she only uncovers more questions.

Who was Jack?  Is he dead or did he fake his disappearance?  And, what was he mixed up in—art theft, the mafia, espionage, or all three?

I thought the first section of the book could have sustained the suspense a bit better, but once Zoe gets to Las Vegas the story picks up speed, and it maintained my interest all the way up to the exciting ending.  The Epilog set the stage for the next book in the series.

One of the reasons the plot starts to zing in Las Vegas is because Zoe meets up with her ex-husband, Jack.  The tension between the one-time lovers is wonderful.  Their marriage ended because the two were not open enough with each other, so once their adventures force them to drop their defenses, the underlying attraction that brought them together in the first place comes to the fore.

Here is a quote from after they start working together to resolve the complex situation they find themselves in:

Zoe swiveled on the bar stool, and her knees bumped against Jack's thighs.  He shifted back an inch.  "Sorry," Zoe said and forcefully ignored the thoughts shooting through her mind about how weird it was that she was hyper aware that her legs were so close to his.  She'd lived in the same house with this man and never once thought about his thighs in the last year.

Mentally, she told herself to focus.

This indie-author, Sara Rosett, is building a series of fun, adventurous, suspense novels, and presenting them with stylish, professional covers.  She works hard to get them well-edited, too, which is always a plus for indie-authors.  Her website offers extras, like Pinterest boards full of images to accompany her books.

The books in the On the Run series so far:

1. Elusive (free e-book)
2. Secretive
3. Deceptive
4. Suspicious (also partly set in Italy)

Elusive, the first book in the On the Run series is offered as a free e-book via Smashwords, the on-line e-book store that offers e-books in various formats such as mobi (Kindle), pdf, ePub, Sony...

Free Elusive e-book from Smashwords (free books sometimes become paid)

The e-book and paperback version of Elusive are available via Amazon.com.  The Elusive e-book is often free at Amazon.com, too, but only in the mobi (Kindle) format.  Here are the links to all the books in the On the Run series at Amazon.com.

Please visit the author's website, and the author's Pinterest board for Elusive.




This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.